Rzhanaya Polyana, Russia (SportsNetwork.com) - Russia's Alexander Zubkov secured his second Sochi gold on Sunday after leading the host nation's top four-man bobsled team to victory at the Sanki Sliding Center.
Zubkov, who combined with Alexey Voevoda to win gold in the two-man on Monday, piloted the Russian-1 sled to a total time of 3 minutes, 40.60 seconds to become just the sixth driver to win two bobsled golds in the same Games.
Russia's fourth run time of 55.39 seconds was .08 seconds slower than second- place Latvia's final run, but the Russians built a big enough cushion over their first three runs to hang on for their first Olympic four-man gold.
Steven Holcomb piloted the top U.S. team to gold in Vancouver four years ago and won bronze with Steven Langton in the two-man, but was unable to guide the USA-1 sled to another top finish.
However, Holcomb made sure the Americans left with a medal, finishing with a total time of 3:40.99 to edge a second Russian squad by just .03 seconds for bronze.
Germany, which had won four straight Olympic gold medals in four-man bobsled before Holcomb's sled ended the streak in 2010, failed to reach the podium in four-man for the first time since the 1968 Grenoble Games. The Germany-1 sled finished in sixth, despite featuring the same group that took first place at the 2013 World Championships.
Russia's win gave the host nation 13 gold medals in Sochi -- tied for the second-most all-time at the Winter Games behind Canada's 14 at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Russia led the overall medal count with 33 and the U.S. was second with 28, including nine golds.
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